Highlight contending merge requests

Even in small teams merge conflicts are frustrating when unanticipated. To anticipate conflicts it helps to know who else is modifying the same files. GitLab should link to merge requests which are changing the same files.

This is not a complete solution. Even if merge conflicts do not occur, tests could break because of a changed API that is unanticipated. A more comprehensive and computationally expensive approach is to proactively run tests against other feature branches: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/7222

Proposal

• Add a Similar merge requests section to the merge request interface

  We can compare which files are changed and show other merge requests with the most significant overlaps. We could possibly use a scoring system where same file is worth x points and same line in a file is worth 3x points for example.

• Add a link in the diff view to show open merge requests touching the same file

Links / references